The Two of Us (11 page)

‘Spoilt for choice,’ says Henry.

‘Deffo,’ says Suzi.

‘William?’ asks Joe.

‘Couldn’t agree more,’ I say. ‘Let’s er . . . you know, sleep on it? Make some decisions next week?’

‘Very sensible,’ says Henry. ‘Best not to rush these things.’

‘Cool,’ I say.

‘But we’ll need a decision by nine a.m. Monday morning, ’kay?’

‘Monday,’ I repeat, because my brain is too preoccupied (
twins twins twins!
) to form a more sophisticated response.

Joe waits until we are on the street and clear of the agency people before he grabs me by the bicep and demands: ‘What the fuck is going on with you?’

‘Me?’

‘Who the fuck else was ac— Suzi,’ he says, over my shoulder, switching effortlessly from incandescence to slick affability.

‘Excuse me,’ Suzi says, ‘I wondered . . . I was wondering if you . . .’

Joe is still gripping my upper arm, his fingers digging painfully into my flesh. Suzi holds something towards me. It looks like a pink Lego brick. The only remotely feasible explanation I can
come up with is that Suzi is psychic, has sensed I am about to become a father, and is presenting me with a gift for my child. I almost tell her that I’ll need two, because I’m having
twins. Instead, I just look at her as if she’s mental.

‘It’s a script,’ Suzi says. ‘I mean it’s a memory stick, but there’s a, you know, script . . .’

I take the Lego brick and slide it open, confirming that, yes, it is indeed a memory stick.

‘Only if you have the time, of course,’ she says.

‘Time?’

‘To read it.’

‘Me?’

‘I know you know your films,’ she says, blushing, ‘and I’d really appreciate your . . . you know, opinion.’

I
like
films, but I wouldn’t claim to
know
films. What I know is how to drop a movie reference into a commercial treatment so that advertising folk can forget
they’re working on, oh I dunno, say a toilet roll commercial. But I don’t
know
films
.

‘I’d be honoured,’ I say.

Suzi smiles. ‘Thank you.’ She holds out her hand for me to shake it, then thinks better of it and goes up on tiptoes to kiss my cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she says again, then
walks quickly away.

Joe, still holding my arm, pulls me around so I am facing him. ‘We will get to that’ – he nods in Suzi’s direction – ‘in a moment, but first things last: what
the fuck is wrong with you? If I didn’t know you were too much of a square, I’d swear you were on something.’

‘Will you let go of my arm? It’s nearly off, you frigging goon.’

Joe releases me one finger at a time.

‘And I’m not square, you gob-shite. If anyone’s square it’s you, you sodding . . . square.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Can we get a drink?’

‘Fuck me inside out,’ says Joe. ‘You’re sure? There’s no chance it’s a terrible mistake?’

‘Well, it wasn’t exactly planned.’

‘Twins,’ he says, rubbing his stubble as if I’ve just told him I have cancer. ‘Fisher, mate, I’m sorry. Are you okay?’

‘I think so,’ I tell him. ‘I think I’m pretty happy, actually. I mean, I am. Happy.’

Joe lays a hand on my shoulder and squeezes, he nods, smiles at my bravery.

‘Accident then.’

‘Kind of . . . not exactly.’

I think back again to the first time I made love with Ivy, me asking (obliquely but unequivocally) if we needed protection.
Ivy shaking her head, smiling, ‘It’s okay.’
So what exactly did that ‘It’s okay’ mean? Because I’ve just seen high-definition evidence that tells a subtly different version of events. Not that I’m saying
it’s
not
okay, I’m pretty sure it’s magnificent, but I can’t shake the feeling I’ve missed a key detail somewhere. Events have happened so fast and out of
sequence that sometimes – drifting off to sleep, for example; zoning out in front of a movie; rattling along on the Underground – I find it hard to assemble, order or . . .
how did
this happen? . . .
even believe the facts
.
Once or twice I’ve come close to asking Ivy what she meant that night, but the timing (nausea, fatigue, quiet intimacy) is always off,
and the unasked question feels raw and accusatory.

Joe nods as if he understands. Maybe he does. Maybe he can explain it to me.

‘You know what they are?’

I shake my head.

‘You wanna pray they’re not boys. Take it from me; they’re a fahooking nightmare. You ever been kicked in the sisters by a three year old?’

‘Not since I was three, no.’

‘Well I have,’ he says. ‘I’m sitting on the floor doing a four-piece jigsaw, and Sammy just walks up like he’s going to hug me, then – Bam! – little
bastard hoofs me full tilt in the nadgers. I’m telling you, if I ain’t firing blanks by now it’ll be a genuine miracle.’ He downs the last of his pint.
‘’nother?’

‘In for one, in for two,’ I tell him.

As it turns out, I was in for five, and I now have an early hangover. Not how I’d planned on meeting Ivy’s parents.

‘How’s your head?’ Ivy asks.

‘Fine,’ I say.

I don’t know why I’m lying; it just feels like the appropriate response. Like I’m honouring tradition. I need sleep but we’re in Ivy’s Renault Kangoo, driving west
on the M4 at eighty-three miles an hour. I tried resting my head against the window, but even with my folded-up jacket as a pillow the vibrations were shaking me sick.

‘Now you know how I feel every morning,’ she says, a little too smug for my liking.

‘Don’t blame me, blame . . . your ovaries.’

‘You told Joe then?’

The plan was to wait until I had been innocuously introduced to Ivy’s family, then – maybe two weeks later – break the news to her parents and mine and then everybody else.

So much for plans.

‘Sorry, couldn’t really help myself.’

‘And? What did he say?’

‘He was very happy for us. Said parenthood is a blessing.’

Ivy laughs. ‘Right. I’m sure.’

We drive in silence for a while; it’s dark and the motorway lights are hypnotically soothing.

‘You okay?’ Ivy asks. ‘You’re quiet.’

That’s because I was thinking about the first time we made love. Wondering what you meant by
‘It’s okay’.
Do you remember that? Don’t get me wrong,
I’m deliriously happy and everything, but . . . well, what with you being full of twins now, what exactly
did
you mean by,
‘It’s okay’
?
But as ever,
the question (redundant anyway in the face of the glaring biological facts) is prickly and the timing stinks. Ivy is radiating happiness after this morning’s scan, we’re both reeling
from the news that our babies are plural, and we’re meeting Ivy’s parents in a couple of hours where we have to pretend we’ve been dating for eight months and we’re not
pregnant.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Okay, I mean. It’s just . . . it’s all just a bit . . . unexpected.’

‘You’re telling me,’ says Ivy. And then, ‘Did you ever think about how many you wanted?’

‘Kids?’

‘No, pints,’ she says. ‘Of course kids.’

‘Less than I just had pints,’ I tell her. ‘You?’

Ivy doesn’t hesitate. ‘Three. That’s what I always wanted, ever since I was a little girl. But . . . well, I’m not a little girl anymore, am I? I’m forty-one next
birthday.’

‘You’re as young as the man you feel.’

‘I suppose I’d let the idea go,’ she says. ‘But now that we’re having two, three wouldn’t necessarily be beyond the realm of possibility.’

Out of the corner of my eye I can see Ivy looking at me, waiting for a reaction.

‘We didn’t find out what they are, did we? The babies?’

‘No,’ says Ivy. ‘Too early.’

‘Right, of course, my head’s a bit . . .’

‘You didn’t answer,’ Ivy says.

‘Answer what?’

‘Whether three kids would be beyond the realm of possibility?’

‘I didn’t realize it was a question.’

‘It’s a question.’

‘We’d need a bigger flat,’ I tell her.

‘Fine,’ she says, and whether she’s backing off or closing the deal, I don’t know.

After two hours of driving and sitting in traffic, we stop at a Welcome Break services to pee, refuel and buy Skittles. I also buy flowers for Ivy’s mother and a bottle of red wine for her
father. The final leg of the journey takes a little over an hour, but by the time Ivy rolls the car into her parents’ driveway, the flowers have wilted and my hangover has progressed from an
idea to the real deal.

In a scene reminiscent of our arrival at my dad’s house two months ago, Ivy’s parents are out of their front door before either of us has released our seatbelt. Ivy’s father is
a bear of a man, standing half a head taller than my six-three; a head that’s as large, uneven and pockmarked as a month-old Halloween pumpkin. It’s the sort of head that would give
children – and some adults – bad dreams. They say women grow up to look like their mothers, and I’d worry about that if the discrepancy between Ivy and her mum wasn’t so
profound as to be practically unfeasible. Mrs Lee is a small, plump woman with bulbous eyes and mad, haystack hair that begins far back on her large, domed forehead. And you have to hand it to
Mother Nature for making something as beautiful as Ivy from such interesting genetic ingredients. What the Lees lack in photogenicity, however, they make up for in enthusiasm. Despite being at
least twenty years older than my own father, they are both alarmingly energetic.

‘Baby girl,’ says Mrs Lee, kissing her daughter. She turns to me, looks me up and down and nods as if appraising a pair of curtains. ‘And you must be William. Now come
on,’ she says, patting my bottom, ‘give us a twirl so we can get a proper look at you.’

‘Eva! Leave the lad alone,’ says Ivy’s dad as I turn unsteadily on the spot, a bottle of wine in one hand, a bunch of wilted flowers in the other. ‘You’re like a
shrew, woman.’ He takes his daughter’s head in his giant hands and kisses her on the forehead, the tip of the nose and then the lips. ‘Hello, Flower,’ he says, and Ivy hugs
him around the neck, lifting her feet from the ground and dangling from his shoulders like a child.

And if I have a daughter, I’m calling her Flower, too.

‘These for me?’ says Mrs Lee, taking the drooping roses before I have a chance to answer. ‘Oo, you must have been naughty. Ha ha, only joking. Come on, let’s get
’em in some water, they look worse’n you, lad. You all right, William? You look a little queasy.’

I haven’t said a word so far, and I’m afraid to try in case I let slip that I am the father of their lime-sized twin grandchildren.

‘Inside, woman,’ says Ivy’s father. ‘You’ll scare him off. I’m Ken, by the way,’ and he slaps me on the back so hard I nearly drop the wine on his
driveway.

‘Wine,’ I finally manage, holding the bottle out to him.

‘Looks like a good ’un,’ he says. ‘Let’s get her open.’

We cross the threshold of the Lee residence, and I’m beginning to entertain the idea of relaxing, when another inflated male specimen charges towards us across the expansive hallway. I
brace myself for a crippling impact but the guy – he must weigh close to eighteen stone – swerves past me, and lifts Ivy off her feet. ‘Sis,’ he says, swinging her around in
a full three-sixty that makes me wince for the safety of our secret unborn babies. ‘Crikey,’ he says, ‘you put on weight?’

‘If you don’t want a family pack of Skittle puke in your ear,’ says Ivy, ‘you’d better put me down right now.’

Ivy’s brother laughs and hoists her even higher.

‘Frank!’ Ivy says, thumping him hard on the shoulder. ‘I’m not kidding, put me down, you gibbon.’

‘All right,’ he says, lowering her to the ground. ‘Chillamena Willamena.’

‘Honestly. And you wonder why I never brought him home before.’

Did they? Did they wonder?

‘Thought it was ’cos he was ugly or something,’ says Frank.

You’d think Ivy’s parents would be above (or beyond, but definitely not behind) lookist humour, but the pair of them laugh, snort and slap their thighs as Ivy all but melts with
embarrassment.

‘Only kidding,’ says Frank, slapping me on the exact same spot his father did. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He extends his hand and then shakes mine with surprising tenderness.
‘Frank,’ he says. ‘Little brother.’

‘Little?’ I say, ‘God, I’d hate to meet the big ones.’

‘
Big ones!
’ Frank repeats, laughing as if I were the king of wit. ‘Well, you can relax for today. Big bruv number one’s in Australia, and number two’s in
Edinburgh, which amounts to the same thing for all we see of him. Come on, let’s get that bottle open,’ and he snatches the wine from his father and disappears into another room.

Whilst it’s true that, before Ivy, I had never taken a girlfriend home to meet my family, this isn’t the first time I’ve been the romantic novelty. Before I
was with Ivy, I lived with Kate – the only other girlfriend I’ve held onto for more than a week – and after about three months together she insisted (ultimatums were made) I meet
her parents. They were fine, but Kate turned into a posturing caricature of ‘successful daughter in grown-up relationship’. It was excruciating – she perched on the edge of any
chair I sat on, running her fingers through my hair, kissing me at every opportunity and displaying more affection than she ever did in our own flat. She catalogued every restaurant and wine bar
we’d been to, replayed snippets of witty conversation and even seemed to articulate her words more precisely. More than showing me off, it was as if she were making a point about herself. The
whole three-day performance was reminiscent of the way my young nieces would breathlessly recount a victory in the egg-and-spoon race or stand to attention in the living room singing the words to a
song from the school play. Ivy does none of that. She is the same here as she is when we’re alone, and watching her talk, joke and relax with her family in the same way she does with me,
makes me feel like I belong here and reinforces how much Ivy and I belong together. It’s all I can do not to perch on the arm of her chair and run my fingers through her hair.

Even so, it takes around thirty minutes and a full glass of wine before my nerves begin to settle. Sitting in the Lees’ living room, I allow the conversation to wash over me, interjecting
only when I am expressly called upon to do so. And as the family catch up on domestic gossip, I sip my drink and take in my surroundings. The house is full of photographs of Ivy, her brothers, Ken
and Eva. There are pictures hanging from the walls, standing on shelves and lining the stairway up to the bathroom on the first floor. I’m mesmerized by one in particular, standing in a small
frame on the mantelpiece. According to Ivy’s mum, her daughter was six when the picture was taken; she is freckled and her teeth look gappy and wonky inside her smile. I feel a surge of love
– and there’s no question, that’s what it is – for this child who is now, thirty-five-years later, carrying my own children inside her. It’s a separate affection from
the one I hold for the Ivy sitting opposite me, pretending to drink her wine; it’s for the child in this photograph as she was the day she sat in front of the camera. There are no scars on
the Ivy in this picture; and once I’ve realized this, I realize there are – as far as I can see – no pictures of Ivy in the years immediately after the accident. There are
pictures of baby Ivy, toddler Ivy, 6- and 7-year-old Ivy . . . then nothing until the Ivy in the photographs is maybe twelve years old and then beyond. In these later pictures, Ivy is visibly
uncomfortable in front of the camera, generally angling the scarred side of her face away from the lens. This was the room where it happened; where Ivy tap-danced her way through a glass coffee
table and tore her face open. And looking at the child in the photograph, I wish I could warn her. But then where would that leave me and my twin babies? I have no time for the platitude that
‘everything happens for a reason’, but the fact remains – if Ivy hadn’t crashed through that table, she would have been a different woman from the one she is today. And
maybe that woman would already be married by now, a mother to someone else’s children.